"And, after all the rest, that nice clergyman stopped me on the road and talked to me!" "You mean Mr. Alison? He stopped you?" Jenny looked interested. "What did he say?" "Oh, nothing--only that he'd known my father, and that he hoped I was very happy. Of course I am--with you!" "There's your place--between Mr. Dormer and Austin. Sit down, or Loft won't give you any lunch." Between Dormer and me was opposite Jenny and Lacey--Chat and I each sitting at an end of the oblong table. Jenny showed no remission in her efforts to keep Lacey amused--indeed she rather engrossed him, and the other four of us talked together. But from time to time his eyes strayed across the table--and once he caught Miss Margaret studying his handsome face with evident interest. The girl blushed. Jenny was smiling contentedly as she regained her guest's attention. Dormer made great play with the pretty girl. It did not take long to discover that this was Dormer's way. He had the gift--one enviable to slow-tongued folk like myself--of a perpetual flow of small talk; this he peppered copiously--I must confess to thinking that it needed seasoning--with flirtation, more or less obvious--generally more. He plied Margaret with the product, much to her apparent liking; she was at her prettiest in her timid fencing with his compliments, her shy enjoyment, her consciously daring little excursions into coquetry. But Dormer's eyes were not all for his own side of the table either; he made an effort or two to draw Jenny into conversation; he often looked her way. With those two in the room together, a man might well be puzzled to decide on which face to turn his eyes. Jenny assisted Dormer's choice. She would not be drawn by him--she was still for Lacey. The two couples talked, Chat and I falling out of the conversation; we could not condescend to call commonplaces across the space that divided us, and Chat and I seldom talked anything else to one another. After lunch we all went into the garden--except Chat, who always took a siesta when she could. Here Jenny carried off Dormer, to see the hothouses--it was time to be civil to him. I fancied that she would not be vexed if I left Lacey and Margaret to a _tete-a-tete_, so, when they proposed strolling, I was firm for sitting, and we parted company. I could watch them as I sat. The two were getting on very well. For a little while I watched. My cigarette came to an end--I followed Chat's excellent example and fell asleep. I awoke to find Jenny standing beside me. She was pulling a rose to pieces and smiling thoughtfully. Our guests had, it seemed, departed; Margaret was visible in a hammock under a tree at the other end of the lawn.